July 27, 2010

Zooming in Adobe Ideas = Interesting note-taking

Adobe Ideas allows fractalesque zooming. You are able to use vast scale differences to communicate importance as well as benefit from a very flexible canvas, so you almost never run out of space taking notes.

Via David Macy, Ideas PM. For David’s perspective on what Ideas is all about, see previous.

Photoshop Automator Actions enhanced, revised for CS5

Version 5 brings compatibility with Photoshop CS5, as well as the final release of the CS4 actions… The new Diptych and Triptych actions automate the process of creating two-up, and three-up layouts. With full control over margins and spacing, diptych and triptych creation has never been easier.

The new Contact Sheet action replicates most of the functionality of the Contact Sheet script that is available as an optional install from Adobe. Of course, the advantage of having such power within Automator is that you can now automate the production of your contact sheets. Contact Sheet produces a PSD (either flat or layered) and gives you the option of displaying up to two lines of metadata beneath each thumbnail.

The free bundle includes 41 actions for day-to-day automation needs, and a $20 Pro bundle that includes 95 actions. The two packages are available for Photoshop CS4 and CS5. Check out Ben’s site for download links & details. [Via]

[Tangential, inside-baseball note: A big, wet, sloppy kiss to the folks at YouTube for now allowing one to specify the dimensions for embedded video. I can’t tell you how many times I used a blank document in Photoshop to calculate how to scale object height to match a certain width. Adios to all that!]